B. Clinchy et al., The growth and metastasis of human, HER-2/neu-overexpressing tumor cell lines in male SCID mice, BREAST CANC, 61(3), 2000, pp. 217-228
HER-2/neu is overexpressed on a variety of human adenocarcinomas and overex
pression has been associated with a poor prognosis. For this reason, HER-2
has become an attractive target for immunotherapy. To facilitate testing of
anti-HER-2-monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) and immunotoxins (ITs), we have ev
aluated the in vivo growth and metastatic spread of three HER-2-overexpress
ing human breast cancer cell lines (BT474, MDA-MB-453 and HCC1954) and one
ovarian cancer cell line (SKOV3.ip1) in pre-irradiated male SCID mice using
subcutaneous (s.c.), intravenous (i.v.) and intraperitoneal (i.p.) routes
of injection. All the cell lines tested grew as s.c. tumors and the growth
of BT474 and MDA-MB-453 cells after s.c. injection was improved by co-inocu
lation with Matrigel. Metastases to the lungs were detectable by PCR or his
topathology after s.c. injection of BT474 and to a much lesser extent after
s.c. injection of HCC1954, MD-MB-453 and SKOV3.ip1cells. I.P. injection of
HCC1954 and SKOV3.ip1 cells produced fatal ascites while i.v. injection of
SKOV3.ip1, but not BT474 or MDA-MB-453 cells, resulted in infiltration of
lungs and death within 9-11 weeks.